In this paper we demonstrate a system-level simulation of a temperature controlled microsystem which is based on a reduced order model of a micro hotplate. Together with the electro-thermal microstructure we have implemented a control scheme, which allows the hotplate to operate either at a defined setpoint independent of ambient temperature or to follow defined temperature sweeps. An optimization...
View full abstract»

Curing effects and difference in thermal contraction of components cause residual stresses and warpage during encapsulation of electronic packages. Residual stresses combined with thermal and mechanical loads influence package reliability and performance and may eventually lead to product failure. Comprehensive material characterisation is needed in order to perform numerical simulations which tak...
View full abstract»

Thermal Design of Li-ion battery cells/modules is necessary to ensure better cycle lifetime of the batteries. High power batteries (40Ah-100Ah) generate a significant amount of heat which needs to be dissipated somehow. In this work thermal experiments and simulation are utilized for better thermal design of battery module. The results indicate that liquid cooling is almost indispensible for high ...
View full abstract»

Developing the stress response using the molecular and mesoscale levels is fairly reliable during the initial strain. For instance, modulus is a property that can be established using these techniques and the continuity of scale suggests that both may be used to establish modulus for parameterizing a macroscale model when measured properties are unavailable. However, the latter part of the stress/...
View full abstract»

The embedded strain gauges in a PQC-TEG were applied to the measurement of the change of the residual stress in a transistor structure with a 50-nm wide gate during thin film processing. The change of the residual stress was successfully monitored through the process such as the deposition and etching of thin films. In addition, the fluctuation of the process such as the intrinsic stress of thin f...
View full abstract»

Micro-projector based displays are proposed for information display for a number of consumer devices. These displays would provide larger images than existing fixed Liquid crystal displays. The two major components of micro-projector technology are the Light source and the Imaging technology. Three primary colors, red, blue and green are required to create full color images. The light sources in t...
View full abstract»

A MEMS inertial rotational gyroscope, able to measure the pitching speed, is presented in the paper. MEMS device normally includes two parts: mechanical and electronic (control system) part. In this paper the attention is focused on the mechanical part to obtain a predictable model that can be integrated with future model of the control system. The model response has been verified via both FEM mod...
View full abstract»

The verification phase (Final Test) of inertial MEMS gyroscopes design properties takes a basic role in the sensors production. It's during this phase that devices are tested to reveal their effectiveness in the survey of the angular rate. The verification phase is based on a set of several tests able to evaluate the gyroscope characteristic properties, such as the resonance frequency, the quality...
View full abstract»

The technology of 3D IC integration is highly probable to achieve the demand for high performance, better reliability, miniaturization and lower-priced portable electronic products. Since the through silicon via (TSV) is the heart in 3D IC integration architectures, the reliability issues of TSV interconnects should be extremely concerned. Due to the large thermal expansion mismatch among the Cu, ...
View full abstract»

The aim of this work is to determine a joule heating prediction model for thick copper/Low-k interconnects on glass substrate technology. Experiments and simulations have been used to define thermal conductivities of our stack material from thermal resistance study. In a second time, the thermal resistance is used as quantitative response to predict the joule temperature in the strip. The experime...
View full abstract»

The Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor (IGBT) module subjected to a power cycle test will induce a heat concentration zone, rapid change of temperature profile and non-uniform temperature distribution on the IGBT chip. The variation of junction temperature can affect the lifetime of the IGBT module. However, the test module contains several components with different scales and material characterist...
View full abstract»

The influence of the lower electrode positions on the dynamic response of polysilicon MEMS resonators is studied and presented in this paper. The change in the frequency response of investigated MEMS resonators as function of the lower electrode positions is measured using a vibrometer analyzer. The decrease in the amplitude and velocity of oscillations if the lower electrode is moved from the bea...
View full abstract»

Nanoindentation is one of the most known method for investigating the properties of thin films. The materials can be assessed by means of elastic mechanical properties (hardness and Young's modulus). However, the author's research works show that it is possible to obtain the elastic as well as the plastic material behavior of the investigated thin layer. It can be done by using the nanoindentation...
View full abstract»

MEMS devices and sensors in automotive applications are exposed to vibrations during service life. These vibrations can have a profound effect on the accuracy and reliability of the device. In this study a 3D force sensor, to be used in an automotive tire for the measurement of longitudinal and lateral forces is analysed. The study compromises two parts: First, a numerical analysis is performed to...
View full abstract»

Numerical simulation plays an important role in product design. Its accuracy relays on a detailed description of geometry, material models, load and boundary conditions. This paper focuses on a new approach of FEM material modeling of three commercially available molding compounds. Curing shrinkage, modulus of elasticity and coefficient of thermal expansion were measured and implemented into comme...
View full abstract»

Metal degradation has recently received increased attention as a failure mechanism in power devices under active cycling conditions, i.e. under repeated pulsed voltage/current loads. Both electro-thermal and thermo-mechanical simulation are indispensable for understanding this mechanisms. The paper presents experimental and simulation data for a dedicated test structure. A suitable lifetime model ...
View full abstract»

In order to place sensors or electronics in very high temperature environments, new materials and methods for interconnection are required. A comparative study between different electrical interconnection methods for very high operation temperatures (500°C - 800°C) is presented. Thermo-mechanical simulations and characterization of samples of the interconnection types during high tem...
View full abstract»

Predicting the lifetime of solder joints undergoing thermal cycling is crucial for the electronics industry in order to guarantee a certain performance of their products in the field. Semi-empirical methods are often used to predict the average lifetime of the critical joints. However, to get a reliable failure probability the standard deviation must also be addressed. The deviation of the lifetim...
View full abstract»

In this paper a simulation is presented which tracks photons through complex material systems. Besides the usual Compton and Rayleigh scattering that is covered in high energy radiography simulations the presented model considers Bragg-Laue diffraction. The implementation bases on a Monte Carlo code to account for the scattering during radiography. In this paper first results of the simulation are...
View full abstract»

Electric power grid operation being an ever challenging scientific field is faced with a high variety of optimization problems. Since the future vision of so called smart grids causes higher complexity and new requirements to these problems, sophisticated investigation in suitable optimization algorithms is essential. Here, metaheuristic optimization strategies are proven to be suitable for high d...
View full abstract»

This study assesses the reliability life of 3D chip stacking packaging developed by the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI). The simulation results show that the trends of stress of through silicon via (TSV) structures with different chip stacking numbers are nearly constant during thermal stress analysis. Therefore, the simplified two-layer chip stacking model is adopted to analyze th...
View full abstract»

Warpage of flat packages is partly due to chemical shrinkage of the molding compound during cure and partly due to differences in thermal contraction in the subsequent cooling stage. The latter effect is relatively easy to incorporate in numerical simulations but the cure-induced shrinkage effect is not and is therefore often neglected in warpage simulations. Recent validation studies however show...
View full abstract»

In order to overcome the disadvantages of low mass transport efficiency of oxygen to the cathode and poor performance of passive micro direct methanol fuel cells (DMFC), the structures of the cathode current collector for the passive micro DMFC have been studied. The passive micro DMFC employing the cathode current collector with the planar perforated-plate structure has been fabricated. The effec...
View full abstract»

VDMOS devices with high voltage and high current are widely used in power semiconductor devices, the microelectronics and power electronics technology. In this paper, the failure properties of VDMOS devices have been investigated by temperature cycling experiment and finite element software simulation. The experiment results show that some electric properties of devices degenerate and there are so...
View full abstract»

This paper presents the results of a numerical analysis on the electrical interconnect options of a Power QFN (PQFN) package, to explore and compare the RDS(ON) performance at DC condition. The modeling involves the PQFN 5mm × 6mm package which initially uses Aluminum wire bonds for interconnection. Competition in the market in terms of better electrical performance packages chal...
View full abstract»